Ilyushin Il-28T
Soviet Jet Torpedo Bomber

Bobcat Hobby Model Kits,1/48 scale

Reviewed by Brett Green

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The Ilyushin Il-28, NATO reporting name: Beagle, is a jet bomber of the immediate post WWII period that was originally manufactured for the Soviet Air Forces.

It was the Soviet Union's first such aircraft to enter large-scale production.

Total production in the USSR was 6,316 aircraft, and over 319 H-5s were built. Only 187 examples of the HJ-5 training variant were manufactured.

In the 1990s hundreds remained in service with various air forces over 50 years after the Il-28 first appeared.

It was also licence-built in China as the Harbin H-5. The only H-5s in service currently are approximately 80 aircraft which operate with the Korean People's Air Force.

The Il-28 has the USAF/DoD reporting name "Type 27" and NATO reporting name "Beagle", while the Il-28U trainer variant has the USAF/DoD reporting name "Type 30" and NATO reporting name Mascot.

* Historical summary courtesy of Wikipedia

Bobcat Model Hobby Kits has released an all-new 1/48 scale Ilyushin Il-28T Soviet Jet Torpedo Bomber.

Although the model is labelled as a torpedo bomber, it appears to have the standard sized bomb bay of the bomber variant. If you want to build the model as the standard Il-28 bomber, simply leave off the torpedoes, their mounts and the wing tip tanks. The smaller radome of the bomber version is also included on the fuselage sprue. You'll have to source your own decals though (Hi-Decal Line has just released two sets of after market decals that will suit the bomber version).

The kit comprises 267 parts in grey plastic and 14 parts in clear, with markings for nine aircraft - six Soviet and three Chinese.

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Thumbnail panels:

Suface textures are very nicely done - quite fine and consistently recessed.

Interior detail is impressive, including a well fitted out cockpit for the pilot and navigator, detailed landing gear and bays, full-length engines and more.

Parts breakdown is conventional, with full-length fuselage halves and both wings being broken down into upper and lower halves, mounted on two long wing spars. All control surfaces, including landing flaps and the lower fuselage air brake, are supplied as separate parts.

The wheels are all-plastic, with the tyres and hubs being separate parts.

Optional open and closed landing gear doors are included (although the instructions do not mention this until after the landing gear legs have been fitted).

Two styles of torpedo are supplied, including pylons and weapons for the wings of the Chinese versions. The torpedoes are well detailed.

Two styles of clear nose and alternative parts for an open or closed canopy are included. The navigator's hatch in the upper fuselage is also a separate part that may be posed open or closed.

Instructions are supplied in a 20 page booklet. Directions are mainly offered by large black-and-white line drawings, but these are quite busy and will require some attention to pick up all the details. Also, the instructions for some sub-assemblies, notably the cockpit, are strangely split up out of logical sequence and randomly spread throughout the booklet (e.g. the seats are on Page 3, radar boxes on Page 9, consoles on Page 10, with bulkheads and final assembly on Pages 12 and 13).

The instructions suggest that you should add 60 grams of weight in the radome but I think you'll need more space and weight than that to avoid having a tail-sitter.

Markings

Nine schemes are provided on the large sized decal sheet. Six of these are Soviet aircraft in overall bare metal.

Two Chinese options are finished in bare metal and white, although the instructions do not offer any information as to the demarcation. The remaining Chinese aircraft is finished in Olive Drab upper surfaces and light grey below.

The Soviet red stars don't have any white background. I initially thought this was an error, but after much research Jennings Heilig suggests that this was quite common.

To quote Jennings:

"It turns out that the white background on the Soviet stars was actually less common than I thought during the 1950s. Many aircraft lacked them completely, including a lot of Beagles. It seems that in later years the white became more common, but it wasn’t universal even into the 1970s. It’s often hard to say for certain, but there are a lot of very clear photos that prove that the white was missing."

Minimal stencil markings are included.

The decal sheet is printed perfectly in register.

This is a big, well-detailed and impressive kit of the Il-28T.

It also represents tremendous value at just USD$42.99. 

Thanks to Lucky Model for the samples

Review Text and Images Copyright © 2019 by Brett Green
Page Created 23 May, 2019
Last updated 24 May, 2019

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